I agree. I’ve had one in ground for a few years, and like it a lot; it’s always been my first in-ground to ripen. Needs a really good microclimate here, though; the wood seems more cold sensitive than that of the Mt. Etna family, and it also appears to have a tendency to wake up earlier. My Improved Celeste is planted against a big slab of concrete----poured as a foundation for a building many years ago—and is covered every winter. It has taken some damage—mostly because of unpredictable Kentucky springs and falls—but has never died back completely. The long-necked figs can indeed attain a pretty good size and, when ripened in fair weather, have a simple, sweet sugar fig flavor that I really enjoy. Some growers report that it is bland and/or unproductive for them, which suggests that there are either different strains floating about, or that it is very sensitive to local conditions.
Might be worth a try in zone 5—with excellent microclimate and heavy protection. Or as a potted specimen.
Mine also usually starts a few days earlier than Hardy Chicago, et al. Very similar in hardiness and general appearance, though I believe the leaves on Malta black are a little different from the general run of Mt. Etnas—rounder, fatter, more trilobate in young growth. The skin of the fruit also strikes me as perhaps a little thicker. It’s also one of the best-tasting; none of the other Mt. Etnas that I grow has ever produced fruit with the delicious strawberry jam flavor that Malta Black can develop in good conditions. Most have a tasty but less-distinct “berry” flavor—to my taste buds, anyway—, although there’s a Greek one, “Papa John,” that I sometimes detect a peach note in.
You see Violette de Bordeaux suggested as a cold hardy fig sometimes, but the whole VdB family seems very cold sensitive. (Edit: I’ve never grown “Nero 600m,” which is supposed to be hardier.) I’ve never been able to get any wood to survive the winter in-ground. They fruit very well in pots, though, and are tasty.
Growing degree days (accumulated heat over a season) explain why north east growers in zone 5b/6a can ripen more varieties than 8a pacific northwest. If you want to go to the extremes there are high desert locations in New Mexico and Colorado that are 5a and consistently over 3000 GDDs.
Figs really compound this by being sequential ripeners–sometimes in our discussions it’s probably not enough to say “it ripens in my zone” but how long before first fall frost does it ripen? If it’s less than 4 weeks it may not be worth growing, or at least not worth having more than one of…
I can confirm that VdB itself is one of the worst… it is one of the few figs I removed due to lack of cold hardiness. Atreano, Alma, and Strawberry Verte are also not super hardy but are much better than VdB. Right now I can see very clearly how hardy various figs are by how brown the tips are… the more browned the less hardy. Most winters either all figs are fine or all die to the ground, but this is one of the in-betweens where the ones that are a bit more hardy are showing their advantage.
I like Celeste a lot, it is not small for me. Fruit was smaller when it was younger but now the figs are good-sized. Other in-ground figs doing well for me are Marseilles Black VS and Hardy Chicago.
I have an Improved Celeste in a container that gave me one fig last year and should put out a good number this year. But I’m wondering how well it holds its fruit? I previously had a Celeste in a 15-gallon grow bag and it tortured me by putting on a big crop of figs and dropping almost all of them if it got the slightest bit dry, even though none of my other figs lost any. I eventually gave it to someone who was going to put it in the ground. Based on my experience, I definitely don’t recommend Celeste for growing in a container, but hopefully, Improved Celeste is better.
Yes, but in 8 years I have not really run into many. If I have problems they are eliminated. Currently after a rough count, I have about 150 varieties to play with. I would like to keep maybe 50 at most. It’s tough eliminating them as I keep adding them to trial. I’m going to stop till I can cull 75 out. I culled 10 last year.
Added 5 though.
I also have Falcon and Malta Black. MB is a definite keeper as is beauty. Falcon is under trial, probably will be eliminated.
Beauty is much like Violette de Sollies or Noire de Barbentane. Out of the three Noire de Barbentane is my favorite, all the figs taste pretty much alike, they look alike too, big purple figs. Noire de Barbentane though is much earlier and a prolific producer from day one. The other two need some time to start producing well. Noire de Barbentane produced the first year for me.
I like to make Fig Newtons. I’m kind of a cookbook nerd. I have a few for desserts, including our own member’s MrsG. I have one of her cookbooks. Stella Parks wrote the Dessert cookbook Bravetart where she handles American classics. Fig newtons is one of her recipes. It’s killer, although one must have good baking skills. I dehydrate my own figs, you use 350 grams and add 2 tbsp. of orange juice, and some apple sauce to rehydrate figs. Mix in a food processor until a smooth paste that can be piped. Unreal flavor doing this, just outstanding. She adds orange rind to the dough which just makes it perfect. She has recipes to use other fruit too. Next year I’m doing dried cherries. I was thinking of adding syrup instead of applesauce to make say black currant fig newtons, or raspberry or blackberry, gooseberry, the list is endless.
Also dehydrated figs in the food processor eliminates any toughness with the skin. It’s not noticed at all. The paste is a beautiful reddish brown, lovely!
I bought a dehydrator from Grainger and I have been using pretty much non stop for 3 years. Love it! It’s off now, but soon I will be drying strawberries.
With figs I dry whole, stem up and squish them down a touch.
i only have 1 of those cheap round plastic dehydrators but its worked good so far. going to make moose jerky tom. got a great deal on 7 packets of hickory jerky seasoning/ cure from a local discount store. plan to do some fruit leather with currants/ cherry and autumn olive once i get enough.
I started with one of those, and yes it works pretty good. I would probably still be using it if I didn’t drop a 12 foot 2x4 on top of it and broke it. This new one is not moved from it’s shelf!! It’s just about their cheapest model, works really good.
Added to my recipe bookmarks! Thanks. I will definitely try it, looks good! The recipe I mentioned is also on the web
There are many fig newton recipes on the net. I found this one to be great, although it takes a lot of work to make. I have made it 4 times now.
Improved Celeste definitely holds its fruit. I have yet to meet another variety that drops its fruit like regular ol’ celeste–except for Unk Mark Nelson’s which is definitely a sport/clone of Celeste. My only other comment on IC is that it absolutely must be over-ripe to be non-insipid. I’d eat an unripe AJH way before a normally ripe IC…
I have Improved Celest in pot. In 2020, a few fruit dropped. In 2021, almost all dropped. It was frustrating because it set a lot of figs. If this trend continue, I may just drop the plant!! It is difficult to figure out the cause. If it was too much water, too dry, too hot or I just looked at it the wrong way!
That has been my experience 100% growing Celeste and Improved Celeste side by side as well with regards to fruit drop. For people in colder regions, I highly recommend Improved Celeste, RLBV &/or Malta Black (or almost any other Mt. Etna), Teramo, and Brooklyn White - those have worked well for me outside in zone 6b so far
Oh yeah, Conadria has worked well too but goodness it always splits and gets watered down easily in my climate
On Ourfigs there was a good discussion about improved celeste and how there are probably more than a few nurseries/people calling other “celeste family lineage” trees ‘Improved Celeste’ etc which apparently has contributed to some different IC “strains” being passed around with the same name. Not saying yours isn’t the “real” IC, but just wanted to throw that out there that I’ve often seen O’rourke and some other figs being passed around by the name “IC” as well, and apparently some of these “IC Strains” have more fruit drop issues than others.
Mt. Etna is a false category established by sellers to attract buyers in colder regions. There is no genetic or morphologic data binding them together (except for a few synonyms and sports). It has been famously discarded by a number of serious collectors, e.g. Ross.
It is also no surprise that Chicago’s Hearty - cultivated for centuries near L’Aquila Italy does well in the Carolinas, in contrast to figs historically cultivated on the Algerian and Tunisian coast.
Yes, I remember reading about the fig genealogy research on Ourfigs, etc. - I am just repeating the commonly used term to lump those varieties together, many argued they are not different varieties at all and everything in-between.
BUT my rule is, I simply adhere to calling them the variety name they come to me as, I’ve got no stake in attempting to clarify all that - I just like growing figs, and comparing what does well for me (and what I like to eat and grow best). Having said that, I’d hate to keep referring to things incorrectly, is there a better terminology the community has settled on for these types of figs?
Largely, out of ~40 figs in my collection those varieties seem to be some of the hardiest, all with extremely similar fruit. I would be hard pressed to tell Malta Black, Hardy Chicago, my local strain of “Mt Etna” fig, RLBV, dominick, St, Rita, etc apart in my climate, but your experience is probably very different than mine due to climate, and the fruit especially if you have the fig wasp.
I strongly doubt that ‘Malta Black’ has anything to do with Malta, I think that it might be named after the Celeste fig strain known as ‘Malta’. ‘Malta Black’ has a lot of similarities to ‘Celeste’, I personally think that it might be a natural hybrid cross between some type of Celeste fig and some type of mount Etna type of fig, it’s a lot like both of them. The nursery that introduced ‘Malta Black’ thought of it as ‘Celeste’ like fig.
It’s very hard for me to give up on a fig cultivator, especially if I love the fruit. Sicilian fig cookies are hard to get right, yet I had already made a Maltese pastry that requires a similar dough making technique.
Malta black is a mt Etna type a definite berry fig. I don’t see or taste anything Celeste about it. We will know a lot more once Richard can afford to get the genetic testing done. I doubt in any way it’s related to Celeste. It is nothing like Celeste. I guess anything is possible it certainly isn’t a sugar fig. Berry all the way.
Was just wondering how to refer to those formerly known as Mt Etna - a lot of people have referred to Verte, JH adriatic, etc as simply adriatic type figs (green with strawberry pulp), not sure if they are genetically related closely, but was genuinely curious if the community had established a good catch-all term for these cold hardy purple types, I have been out of the “fig loop” on ourfigs for ~ 2 years.
It was much easier to tell people that generally the “Mt Etna” types worked best in my region than listing them all out.
